Thailand Travelling and Musing

Having lived in rural Italy for nearly 12 years I have learned never to expect the mundane and that every single day will present something unusual.

I am travelling around Thailand at the moment with a friend who lives mostly in London. The differences in our handling of situations are vast. My friend becomes irate at almost every inconvenience, every little set back and has no patience when a local person is trying to tell us something.

I on the other hand listen and look and of course smile. It then becomes much easier to understand what I am being told.

I am used to strange and unexpected things happening in my life (I do live in the country after all!). Things such as our taxi running out of petrol in the middle of Bangkok at 2 in the morning. My friend was furious and stormed off. I just flagged another one down and started again. The taxi drivers here seem to just cover one area of Bangkok (where I am currently) and so don’t know the other parts of the zone. This infuriated my companion here but as I keep saying, this isn’t London, life here is much more exiting!

Customs and general behaviour are obviously different. Religion, culture. It needs to be respected not compared to “back home”. Living in Italy, even such a short distance from my birth country has taught me that things done a different way aren’t wrong, they are just different and one shouldn’t anger because something is done in a different way. Instead, it is an opportunity to find a fascinating insight of into the culture.

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